


by hook or by crook

by crimson_adder



Category: Hook (1991), Peter Pan & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bad Parenting, Brothers, Case Fic, Crossover, Episode: s01e18 Something Wicked, Fantasy, Gen, I will finish this, Kid Fic, Kidnapping, Magic, On Hiatus, Pirates, Storytelling, Swordfighting, Weechesters, until I remember where I was going with this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimson_adder/pseuds/crimson_adder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1991, Fort Douglas, Wisconsin. Something is snatching children from their beds, and the Winchesters are on the hunt. John doesn't come home one night, Dean is fed up with everything, and in the morning, Sam is gone.</p><p>The only lead is the old woman in an old house who told Dean a story about the most wonderful, magical land and the way through the stars, and Dean think he's found pixie dust on the window sill. Dean makes a promise to find Sammy before Dad gets back, and if that means strong arming the boy who never grows up into taking him along, than that's exactly what he'll do.</p><p>Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning is a terrible time for Dean to figure out that he hates flying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> oh no what am i doing
> 
> this is "Something Wicked" as if instead of a shtriga outside the window, Captain Hook came instead. D:
> 
> I went to Wincon and spent a lot of time making flappy hands about crossovers and how they give me feelings and then I mentioned this that I've had stewing for more than two years and people said "Hey you should just write that" and it took absolutely no convincing for me to say "YESS I WILL I'M GONNA WRITE THE THING".
> 
> here's the thing.
> 
> unbetaed and thrown into the universe with a complete disregard for my lack of experience with gen!fic, kid!fic, children in general, writing supernatural in general, and excessive internet rampaging. let me know if there is smush in my fic. :'D

May 3, 1991  
Fort Douglas, Wisconsin

 

“Papa? I had a bad dream.” Elisa wore her favorite pirate ship pyjamas. “Will you read to me?” She was leaning through the door of Paul Banning’s office, where the light was soft and dim. Paul sat behind his desk, a laptop open in front of him and several stacks of paper. He looked up from his paperwork and shook his head, pushing his thin glasses up his forehead.

“Sorry honey, not tonight. I’ve got too much work.”

It was late, almost midnight. The house was dark and quiet but outside the wind was picking up as a storm rolled in.

Elisa fidgeted. “But there’s something outside my window,” she whispered. Her doe brown eyes were wide and wet, her face pale, and her lower lip trembled briefly. She hovered on the tips of her toes for a moment before her rocking momentum sent her forward and she stumbled to Paul’s side, tucking herself in against his arm. “It keeps knocking and it wants to come in.”

“Sweetie, you’re on the second floor. There is nothing outside your window, I promise.” Paul hesitated, her hands clench in the fabric of his shirt. He wrapped his arm around Elisa and kissed the top of her curly brown hair. “Turn your night light on and leave your door open. I’ll come check on you when I’m done here.”

Elisa rubbed her nose on the long sleeve of her pyjama top. “Okay,” she said with a small hiccup. She turned reluctantly pattered slowly out of the room. She cast a wide-eyed glance back over her shoulder as she left but Paul was already bent over his papers again. The desk light reflected off his glasses and she could not see his eyes.

“Night, papa.”

“Good night, sweetie,” he called absently.

Elisa ran across the floor of her dark, dark room, and scrambled up onto the bed before anything could catch her. She clicked on her fairy bedside light, and pulled the covers up around her shoulders, sitting on top of her pillow. For a long moment she sat, watching the shapes of her bedroom and waiting for them to move.

When they didn’t she scooted down her bed until she was lying flat and the blanket covered her nose. Bonnabee sat on the pillow next to her. Elisa wrapped her fingers around his leg and tugged him closer under the covers.

She closed her eyes and something tapped on her window.

\--

Paul finished the last of his paperwork for the night an hour later. He stood and groaned, reaching up high and stretching the kinks out of his back.

His eyes ached, and the darkness when he flicked off the desk lamp was soothing. Paul rounded the desk and left his office. The hall carpet muffled his footsteps in the quiet night.

Paul pushed at Elisa’s partially open door, and peered inside. He started shivering. It was colder in Elisa’s room than in the hallway, and a chill wind blew in from the open window.

There was nothing but that open window to indicate anything was off. But Paul felt his heart skip a beat regardless. He tripped over the thick hall carpet as he ran to the bundled blankets on the bed. He grabbed the soft fleece of her blankets and ripped them away.

The bed was empty and Elisa was nowhere.

On the window sill there was a long, deep gouge in the wood and a sprinkling of fine gold dust that sparked and flashed in a sudden flare of lightning.


	2. Chapter 2

"Mrs Banning, can you remember anything else about the night your daughter disappeared?" John leaned forward intently.

Miranda Banning hiccuped into her tissue and shook her head, eyes squeezed tight against a new wave of emotion in the tsunami that had been swamping her for the better part of the last thirty minutes. John was nearly resigned to coming back when Mr Banning was home in hopes of actually having a two sided interrogation rather than a question and cry session. Mr Banning had taken to dealing with their daughter's disappearance in throwing himself even more whole-heartedly into his work, leaving Mrs Banning to wallow in her sorrow at home. She did not know when he might be home, or perhaps she did not care.

John tucked his journal into the inner jacket pocket of his cheap suit and plucked a fresh tissue for Mrs Banning to rub her makeup on.

He stood, tugging his jacket around his middle. Mrs Banning looked up, and then away again, staring at the picture on the mantel piece of a chubby, wildly grinning nine-year old. Elisa Banning was red cheeked and curly haired, with bright brown eyes and a mouthful of braces.

She'd been missing for only a day, but she was the third that month.

John opened his mouth to make some consoling noises, when someone knocked on the front door. In the parlour, John and Mrs Banning jumped nearly a foot in the air each. Mrs Banning stood and shuffled around John to answer the door.

Anger bubbled in John’s stomach. Dean stood outside the door, looking belligerent with his jaw set at an irritated angle. Even his freckles looked annoyed.

"Sammy's gotta pee," said Dean, not even bothering to apologize. Sam was whining and wiggling and nearly in tears, so John tapped the anger down and turned a rueful smile to Mrs Banning, who was staring at the children like she'd never seen anything like them before.

"Take your children to work day," lied John. The Impala was parked a block away and around the corner, and Dean knew better than to interrupt when John was interviewing witnesses, but they'd just rolled in to town that morning and John hadn't wanted to waste time searching for motels when the police were already setting up search parties in the wrong directions.

Mrs Bannings face changed in an instant, going soft and wobbly.

"Oh, of course. Elisa loved those. Paul took her to work just last month. Go on," she said to Dean, who was almost holding Sam up by the armpits. "Up the stairs and second door on your right."

Dean nodded, a pinched expression on his face that was his usual go-to for matronly witnesses, and hauled his brother out of the foyer and up the grand staircase. 

Mrs Banning watched them with unbridled longing. "How old are they?" she asked.

"Dean's twelve. Sammy's seven," said John. He cleared his throat, suddenly gruff. "Sorry, eight. He's just had his birthday." John could hear Dean clumping about upstairs. His boots were new for him and too big, because he had just started a growth spurt. John didn't trust any of his clothes to stay on him long enough to make them worth the cost.

Mrs Banning sucked in a deep breath and brushed past John, sweeping back into the parlor with more poise than she'd demonstrated his entire visit. "So serious, your boy. Elisa was much the same way most of the time. She loved her books, her stories, but she was always focused. I loved it when she would get excited about things."

John held his breath. It was the most she'd said about her daughter.

"What did she get excited about?"

Mrs Banning smiled, sad and a little wet. "She told me about her dreams, the last time I saw her. Wonderful dreams about a flying, golden ship."

\--

Sammy hummed to himself when he was peeing and never took less than forever to finish up. Dean slouched outside the shiny marble bathroom and kicked the toe of his big boots into the edge of the thick plush carpet that ran the length of the hallway. It was expensive and kind of ugly.

Down the hall, through a half-opened door, came a voice.

"Who's that?" the voice asked. It sounded old and tired.

Dean looked up, and hesitated. He didn't answer, because there were things out there that if you answered them they would steal your voice or your soul.

Granted, they probably didn't live in Fort Douglas, Wisconsin, but Dad always told Dean to keep his guard up.

He tiptoed down the hall. There was an old lady sitting in a little girl's room. She smiled when she saw Dean. Her face was wrinkled and her whispy silver hair was pulled up in a cotton candy hairdo, with soft curls and a big knot in the back. Her eyes were soft and sunken and her smile was light and warm. It made Dean feel safe, which was not a feeling he was used to.

"Hello there," said the old lady. Her accent was like something off the TV, those British shows he sometimes found when Thundercats wasn't on or Sammy wasn't paying attention. "Are you lost, boy?"

Dean shook his head, and wrinkled his nose.

"Not much for talking, hmm?"

"No."

She chuckled. "Are you here with someone, then?"

Dean nodded. He stepped a bit closer. "My dad's downstairs. He's a cop. And Sammy's in the bathroom."

The old woman sighed deeply, sad and pale, like a china doll. She turned away to the window. Her hair caught the warm yellow sunlight like spun glass and she looked like she came out of a story book. 

"He'll be looking for Elisa, then," she said. She frowned.

"Yeah," said Dean. "And the other kids too."

The old lady was silent.

Dean took a few more steps into the room, until the tips of his big boots just touched the soft shag of the carpet. He hovered there, on the threshold, like a ghost on a line of salt.

The old woman cocked her head to the side like a silver-plumed swan, and smiled at Dean again. It was too sad to be comforting this time. "Is Sammy your friend? What's your name?"

"I'm…Dean. Sammy's my Brother."

"Well Dean. It's lovely to meet you. My name is Wendy." 

"Are you Elisa's grandmother, Ms Wendy?" asked Dean. 

Ms Wendy shook her head. "I am just a good friend, visiting. I knew Mr Banning when he was a little boy, you know. He was one of mine -- my lost boys." Her eyes suddenly came alight, and Dean took an involuntary step forward, his freckled face already creasing into a smile as Ms Wendy said "Would you like to hear a story? Come here, sit by me."

Dean grimaced. He was twelve and being twelve meant he was too old for stories. Except Dad only told him stories about Shtrigas and werewolves, Rawhead and Bloody Bones -- and those stories weren't stories but battle plans. And anyway, there was nothing better to do than wait for Sammy. He walked over and sat on the little red chair at the little pink desk. Ms Wendy leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees.

"When I was a little girl, just about your age," she started, "I met a boy who knew the way to the most fantastic place you could ever imagine. He swept me from my bed and took me off among the stars with my two little brothers. I was born in London, you see, and we flew away across the city lights and the stars, until we landed on the clouds just above a magical island."

And she told him her story. 

She was at the part where she and and the boy met the mermaids in the lagoon, when Dean heard Sammy call from the bathroom. He slipped on his chair with a clatter. He'd been leaning forward too far, hanging on to Ms Wendy's every word. 

"Damn it," he said. 

"Language, Dean."

Dean flushed violently, and stammered "I'm sorry, Ms Wendy."

Ms Wendy cocked a silver eyebrow at him. It was possibly the most terrifying eyebrow he'd ever seen in his life.

"Thanks for telling me the story," Dean said, clambering up. He felt awkward and rude, and also like he should bow, but Ms Wendy stood up as well, graceful as though her feet barely swept the floor.

She was taller than Dean had thought she would be and she smelled like honeysuckle and warm spices. There was just something about her.

Dean didn't want to leave.

He heard the rattle of the bathroom door and then Sammy's shuffling footsteps in the hallway, and he made a split second decision. He threw himself across the room and gave Ms Wendy a fierce hug around the waist.

It only lasted a second, but he could feel her hands rest across his shoulders before he ran away and out of the room.

Sammy peered over his shoulder, going up on tiptoes. "What were you doing?" he asked.

Dean elbowed him and herded him toward the stairs. "Shut up, Sammy."

Dean was not excited to get downstairs and see Dad again. He'd deliberately disobeyed orders and that never ended well. Dad was sitting next to Mrs Banning though, listening intently and making the odd note in his journal, and when he looked up there was a sense of grim satisfaction to him.

"There you are, boys," he said, and Dean sighed internally because there was no hint of the anger he had caught when they'd first showed up. 

Dad stood, straightening his suit jacket. 

"Mrs Banning, thank you very much for your time. I'm sure the information you've given us will greatly aid in the search for your daughter. Boys, thank Mrs Banning for her hospitality."

"Thank you, Mrs Banning," Sam and Dean chorused. Sammy's face broke into an awkward, cheeky grin, and Mrs Banning melted. 

"Of course," she said. Then she closed her eyes and looked like she might cry again.

\--

Dad left them that afternoon in a motel room with four prints of the same picture of a leaf on all the walls. Dean groaned and flopped onto the bed reserved for Dad. He and Sammy would sleep in the one near the wall, but until Dad came back, Dean was sticking close to the TV.

It was just past noon when Dad went to the police station and the library to do his research.

It was almost eight that evening when Sammy piped up. He'd been sitting and reading his book for the past several hours.

"Dean? I'm hungry."

Dean's stomach had been growling for a while too, but to make dinner for him and Sammy would mean defeat. And that Dad was late.

Dean got up off the bed and rummaged through the suitcase of canned food. Dad had said he'd be home for dinner, so Dad hadn't given Dean any extra money to order pizza or anything. If they were sticking around they'd go grocery shopping, but it would all depend on what Dad's research said.

If Dad actually did any research.

Dean felt guilty, a squirmy unpleasant roil in his belly that didn't help his hunger.

"Spaghetti-O's and green beans," he said.

Sammy sighed, a forlorn expression all over his face, but he nodded.

It was as good as any dinner they had on the road. Sam ate everything, despite his grumbling, and Dean added some butter to the green beans to make them taste less like tin.

After eating, Dean foisted Sammy off on the TV for a while. He went outside and watched the streetlights for a while, waiting for the rumble of the Impala. He didn't stay out long.

At ten, Dean declared it bedtime. He tucked Sammy into their bed and then, not having anything else to do, put on his pajamas and got in bed too. 

They lay in the silence and the dark, and eventually they fell asleep.

Dad came back late that night, startling Dean into pulling the knife out from under his pillow. The instinctive reaction earned him a nod of approval and a tired hand wave to go back to sleep. 

Dean turned away from the light and the noise of Dad's rustling clothes and repressed sighs. He watched Sammy, curled up and sleeping soundly, and tried to decide if he could smell alcohol or not. 

No, he decided, and drifted off.


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning Dad dragged them both up for a run at dawn. They drove to the outdoor track of Fort Douglas' K-12 school which was completely deserted at that time of day. The air was cold and Sammy whined until he noticed that Dad was not in the mood to relent.

After Sammy was red faced and panting, Dad made Dean run six more laps around the track, and Dean ran them even harder than usual, knowing this was the retribution for disobeying orders. His lungs were aching and a stitch burned through his side when Dad called him back.

"Good job, Dean!" said Sammy, having caught his breath in time to start cheering Dean through his last laps. Sammy slammed into Dean's side and sent them both to the ground, wheezing.

Dean avoided a bony elbow and a knobby knee and used his legs to leverage himself over Sam, folding him up like a pretzel and pinning him until Dad called time.

Sammy grumbled, they reset, and then Dean was the attacker. He went easier, letting Sam move him with awkward movements. Dad had started Sammy learning Aikido as soon as he could enroll him in a dojo, but he was still a runty kid and didn't have the upper body strength for real wrestling. 

They went through their training until the sun was cresting over the trees and the first cars started pulling up to the school. Dad declared it breakfast time, and back to the motel.

"What do you want for breakfast, Sammy?"

"Lucky Charms!" said Sammy, throwing his hands in the air like it was the most exciting thing in the whole world.

Dad pulled the last box of Lucky Charms from the food suitcase. He motioned to Dean to take care of Sammy while he made his morning coffee. Then he said, "Dean, I want you to eat more protein. You lagged on your run today, slower reflexes during sparring. Eggs and oatmeal."

Dean put the second cereal bowl back, and picked a small frying pan out of the suitcase. "Do you want any?"

Dad shook his head. He was clean shaven, which meant he was going back out as a detective. He sipped his coffee and closed his dark eyes, sighing at the heady bitterness.

"No, Dean, I've got work to do. I'll be back late tonight."

He changed into his suit and roared off in the Impala. 

Dean looked at Sammy, munching happily on his Lucky Charms. "Want some?" he asked, pointing at the oatmeal. If he could convince Sammy to fill up on other things there might be Lucky Charms left over.

But Sammy pulled a face and shook his head, and poured himself a second bowl.

\--

Dean and Sammy weren't enrolled in school. Dad didn't know how long the hunt would last but decided it probably wasn't worth trying to switch schools so close to the end of a semester. He just pulled them out of their old school early, and would get them ready for a new school in the fall.

Mostly that meant that neither of them had enough to do during the day, and no one to talk to, as all the other kids were still in classes.

They went out and explored the town. They spent hours at the park playground, taking up the swings for as long as they wanted because all the other kids were at school. They threw bits of bread to ducks and fish in the pond.

They went back to the motel and watched TV. 

Sam read his book while Dean practiced Latin, gave up, started drawing pictures of dinosaurs attacking robots, and finally slumped on the bed to watch more TV.

They ate Spaghetti-O’s for dinner, and then the power went out so they went to bed.

"Dean?" whispered Sam. He was shivering, and Dean didn't blame him. It was a cold night and without power the heater wasn’t working. Both he and Sammy were wearing extra shirts and socks even with the blankets piled on top.

"What?"

"I can't sleep."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I can tell," he said.

Sammy pinched him on the side, making him jump.

"Tell me a story," he demanded.

Dean wondered how much trouble he'd get into if he told Sam the story of La Llorona. 

Probably a lot.

"Once upon a time," he started, "there was a bratty little kid who was always pestering his big brother, who had better things to do, like sleep, instead of tell him stupid stories. So the big brother made a wish, and the goblins came and took the bratty little kid away to their goblin castle, and the bratty kid had to serve the goblin king until he wasn't such a brat and the big bother let him come home again."

Sam sat straight up in bed and whacked Dean on the shoulder. 

"You big jerk!", he wailed, and Dean burst out laughing. He waved his hands about to shush Sam but completely failed at shushing himself.

Sammy started poking him hard in the sides, making Dean yelp. A tickle fight broke out in due course. 

When Dean had Sammy pinned, gasping with breathless laughter, he sat up straddling Sam's thighs. 

"Okay! Okay, truce?"

"Truce!" giggled Sam.

Dean squirmed, trying to get one more squeal out of Sammy, but his fingers were caught and Sam wrestled his hands down.

Dean huffed another breath of laughter and rolled off Sam. They lay side by side, warm and flushed now despite the chilly room.

"Okay, now will you tell me a story?"

Dean looked at Sam's shining, hopeful face in the darkness, and thought of Ms. Wendy and her story.

"Once upon a time," said Dean, "There was a little girl called Wendy. And she had two little brothers, John and Michael, and they all slept in the nursery together."

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Nurseries are for babies," he said.

"I know, but this was a really long time ago, like, a hundred years ago. Now shut up, I'm telling a story. Anyway, Wendy was thirteen, and almost all grown up, so her parents decided she should have her own bedroom. She liked sleeping in the nursery with her brothers, and staying up all night telling stories, and playing pirate ship and captured princes."

"How do you play pirate ship?"

"I dunno, just pretend you're a pirate, I guess. Talk in funny voices, wear a funny hat, call yourself Samantha the Queen of Pirates or something. Like, the bed is the ship, maybe, and the floor is the water, and there's a pirate battle with the other ship. Shut up. Anyway, on her last night in the nursery, Wendy's mom and dad went out to a fancy party, and Wendy and her brothers went to bed, too sad to tell pirate stories."

Sammy curled up tighter, and tucked his little socked feet up against Dean. "I'm never too sad to watch Thundercats."

"Shut up." Dean flicked Sammy in the nose. "Then, in the middle of the night, they were all woken up by a loud crash! And they woke up to see a boy flying around the nursery."

"Flying? Like an angel, with wings?"

"Angels don't exist stupid. He was flying with pixie dust. There was a fairy too. The boy had lost his shadow, and so -- 

Sam snorted a giggle. "How do you lose your shadow?"

Dean was quiet. He thought about doppelgängers, death omens that have no shadows but steal the shadows of humans, and Nalusa Falaya who slides on his belly into people's shadows to eat their souls. 

And then he said "If you don't keep track of it, it gets bored and wanders off. Peter, the boy, he liked to come and listen to Wendy's stories, so one night when he was listening outside the window, the children’s dog jumped up and chomped at him, and caught his shadow. So he had to come back. And he chased his shadow all the way around the room and woke up everyone, until he finally caught it. And Wendy sat him down and sewed his shadow back on.

"When Wendy heard how much Peter liked her stories, and how he took them home with him to show to the lost boys, like tiny glittery diamonds, she begged him to take her too so she could tell more stories. And then Peter took Wendy and Michael and John and they flew away together, to a place where they would never have to grow up, and they'd never have to be separated."

"I like that idea," muttered Sammy, fisting his hands into Dean's clothes. He fiddled with one of the little white buttons on his shirt. "I wish we could be like real kids."

Dean tried to scoff. "What, you don't think we're like real kids?"

Sammy shook his head and wouldn't look at Dean. "I think we're weird."

Dean didn't know what to say. In a moment, when Sammy didn't say anything either, Dean said, "So they flew up, into the stars, and when they stopped, they were in a magical island in the sky, full of all the best kinds of fun. And there were pirates there, and crocodiles, and jungles, and mermaids. Peter introduced Wendy and John and Michael to his little group of boys who lived with him, and they were all friends. And they all lived in a big tree house, and they never had to get up early, or eat oatmeal, or switch schools. So the boys ran off together, and Peter took Wendy to a blue lagoon, hidden off the coast of the island, where the mermaids lived. And the mermaids weren't very nice, because they were all girls and girls are weird."

There was a long pause.

"And then what happened?" asked Sammy.

"Uh--" said Dean. He wasn't very good at making up stories, only good at remembering them. "I dunno, that's all... that's all the story I know."

"What?" Sammy sat up again, and all Dean's hard work was undone. 

"Lay down, stupid! Go to sleep. I'll tell you more tomorrow if you're not a brat."

Sam lay down begrudgingly, glowering at Dean through the darkness. 

"Promise?"

Dean wriggled his hand up out from the nest of covers. They shook pinkies, and Dean said "Promise. Now shut up."

It wasn't quiet as Sam tried to fall asleep. He shifted, and sighed, and smacked his lips. Dean closed his eyes and after a while Sammy relaxed and started breathing deeper. And soon he rolled away, lost in his own dreams.

\--

"Can we go to the library?"

Dean glanced up from The Simpsons. The power had come back on some time in the night. Dean had managed to hijack the TV while Sammy was in the bathroom, escaping briefly from a Thundercats marathon, but now Sammy was bored. "What? Why?"

Sammy looked confused. "Because I finished my book?"

So Dean took Sammy to the library. Dean had long ago taught Sam that the art of returning books to different libraries than the ones he checked them out from was a totally normal and okay thing to do. Thankfully they rarely stuck around to witness any aftermath, or put Sammy's real name down in the first place.

Sam, despite his nerdy all-consuming love affair with books, actually had very little understanding of how libraries worked, which was a fact that Dean was extremely proud of.

Fort Douglas had a big school library and a small public library, on the first and second floors of a converted old Georgian townhouse. The third floor, Dean could only presume, was where the librarians went to sleep for the night, possibly hanging from rafters, probably in their coffins filled with grave dirt. Most of the space inside was dedicated to long tables lined with benches in between the stacks that lined the walls. There was a small side room for a computer terminal with a sign-up sheet outside that was several pages long.

Dean didn't fit in well in libraries. He always had to touch and fidget and explore and he never managed to do it without knocking things over. Librarians across the country hated his guts on sight and Dean was convinced they were all evil.

Sam steered Dean to a smaller table with four chairs and pushed him down with a firm command to stay, while he went off to find some books. He set off at a march and wandered back only a few minutes later without any new books in his arms. He sat opposite Dean and stared at him intently.

Eventually, Dean looked up. "What."

"Do you think it'd be fun?"

"What?"

"That place, the island." Sam crossed his arms on the tabletop and rested his chin on his wrists. "Play with kids our age. Have adventures. I think it'd be fun."

Dean thought about it. He liked the idea of not having to rely on grown ups, of not having to worry about the things in the dark. But if there were any monsters on the magic island, who would deal with them? "Might be," he said, noncommittally. He shrugged and picked up a pen someone had forgotten. _Click-click_. "You'd miss dad, though." He said it like a joke.

Sam didn't smile and he looked away. "Dad's never home anyway."

Dean kicked him under the table, making him yelp and get shushed by the scowling librarians.

"Dad's doing important stuff," hissed Dean. "He protects people."

"But he's never here! He's always angry and he doesn't talk to us and he's --"

"Shut up!" Dean slammed his hands on the table top and stood, knocking his chair over with a bang. "You have no idea what he's done for us. Just -- shut up, stupid! "

And he stormed out, flipping a rude gesture at the librarians who looked like they were writhing in self-restraint not to howl at him for disturbing their precious silence.

He sat on the front steps of the library and fumed. He couldn't even bring himself to leave Sammy there and find his own way home, because Dad had taught him better. He glared up at the pale grey sky and for a moment imagined he could see the outline of a big black ship just behind the first layer of clouds. He wondered what it would be like, to run away and not have to deal with stupid little brothers and unreliable grownups. 

It'd probably be lonely. Dean couldn't remember the last time he'd played with kids his own age.

Dean's anger was a dull throb of unease twisting his stomach up into knots when Sam came tumbling out of the heavy library doors barely ten minutes later. He hadn't brought any of his books and his face was blotchy and his eyes were red. He was hiccuping and wheezing and crying like a baby. Dean could see a librarian hovering just past the threshold, wringing her hands as the door fell shut. Her sad, sympathetic face switched to an accusing glare at the sight of Dean that surely would have set him on fire if she could.

"Dean?" Sammy tripped to a stop, his face falling in astonishment. He was surprised Dean was still there, like a dummy.

Dean looked away with a harumph. Guilt tore up his chest though, and he patted the stone step beside him.

Sammy took a while to sit. He inched up and stood just behind Dean, then stepped to the same level, and finally sank down to sit. He bumped his forehead tentatively against Dean's shoulder and then sort of collapsed into it, letting his weight fall more on Dean.

"Sorry," he muttered into Dean's shirt.

Dean sighed. "Okay." He was being a jerk and knew it. "Me too." 

Sammy hugged Dean as tight as he could, squeezing the breath out of Dean and trapping his arms to his sides. He burrowed his face into Dean's shoulder like he was trying to crawl inside and hide from the whole world, and he said "Don't leave me, Dean. Please."

Dean slumped into Sammy's embrace. "I won't, Sammy. Never. I promise, I'll never leave you." He wriggled and struggled to get his arms free but Sammy made it difficult, thinking he was trying to pull away and holding on even tighter. Dean worked one arm loose and draped it over Sammy's hoodie, pulling him as close as he could get.

"You big dummy," he muttered against Sam's soft mess of hair.

Reconciled and forgiven, Dean still squirmed with unattended irritation whenever he looked at Sam all afternoon. It dug at him, pinched and prodded until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he left Sam in front of the TV with a forcedly casual, “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Sam watched him uneasily but said nothing and Dean knew he was feeling much the same, chafing under a fight and close proximity. 

Dean wandered Fort Douglas for hours, scooting past boring grown up shops and a playground that was completely empty of kids. He found an arcade and played video games for as long as he had quarters He was not very good at any of them because he was used to shooting things in real life and the video games weren’t quite the same, but it took his mind off things that were otherwise overwhelming that he didn’t want to deal with. He thought about eating ice cream at the local shop, which was open and had no lines, but he felt bad about snacking without Sammy, so he walked past. When he got hungry enough to notice it was almost dinner time, he went back to the motel.

Sammy was sitting at the table drawing something. The TV was off and so were most of the lights, but the window shades were open and the setting sun shone in brilliantly. 

Dad still wasn’t back. 

“Dinner?” asked Dean. He looked around and remembered that Dad hadn’t left them any money for food, and Dean had blown his five dollars on video games at the arcade.

Sam refused to eat more Spaghetti-O’s so Dean ate them instead, watching Sammy munch down the last of the Lucky Charms. 

“Will you tell me more story?” asked Sammy, when they were in their pyjamas and getting ready for bed. The TV had started acting up, flickering with snow and spitting with static, so they had stopped trying to watch it. 

Dean had forgotten to go back to Ms Wendy, to ask her about the rest of the story. “Shit,” said Dean, and when Sammy’s eyes got wide, he said “Sorry. I forgot. I -- I’m too tired to tell you a story tonight. Just go to sleep.”

Then he got in bed and turned his back on Sammy, pretending that he could not the disappointed sigh and also that he did not care.

Dean felt guilty until he fell asleep, and then he dreamed about skating on black ice between the stars, around and around until the stars began to skate with him too. He skated past a darkened part of the sky that turned into a window, which blew open with a cold gust of wind, and Dean shivered because he was not dressed warmly enough. A long black shadow crept through the window and Dean could hear the stars cry his name. 

He sat up wide awake in bed with a shout. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled like the crack of a cannon.

It was only storm, he said to himself, and rolled over in time to see shadows dance across the wall.

One was shaped like a man who was not John Winchester. The other was shaped like a boy who Dean knew better than anyone.

He leapt from the bed and hurled himself at the window as Sam slipped out of reach.

There was no body on the ground, and no sign of anything in the air, but there was a long, deep scrape across the glass and a sparkle of shining, glittery dust on the ledge. 

Dean was crying ten minutes later, deep sobbing gasps of a child who is helpless and afraid and there is no one around to see, when John came back.

“Dean? I’m home.” He was whispering, so as to not wake Sammy.

John looked at Dean, who was pale and hiccuping to stifle his tears. He looked at the window, which was still open. And he looked at the bed, which was empty, but rumpled. 

He turned around and left and Dean tried his very best to stop crying.

It didn’t work.


End file.
